domfluff

Sure. The "Split squads" button also divides them very predictably, and usually by doctrine - they divide into the columns that appear in the UI: This Syrian squad from the CMSF 2 demo will always split into two elements with a Split Squads command - one base of fire element with the PKM, and one manoeuvre element with three men and the RPG (so in practice this implies something more like a modern French squad, or a WW2 Commonwealth one). Modern US squads are built symmetrically, as are WW2 Panzergrenadiers, but that's not the case for every nation, formation and time period. Part of the reason for me using "Split Squads" more is that there's no chance of getting the split wrong - you know precisely what you're getting.

Yeah, splitting off scout teams or AT teams from US squads is something I'd only do temporarily. More and more recently I'm finding myself *only* using "Split Squads" - the outcomes are predictable, and the resulting units tend to be self-sufficient if needed.

I suspect the AT-14 is the far better choice for a static, defensive position, but for a mobile mechanised platoon I think the benefits of the AT-13 are considerable, and probably worth losing some penetrative power.

Good point. I was having trouble finding details on both systems' spotting capabilities, but I'd assumed the AT-14 was superior - AT-13 certainly has thermal imaging, which is going to be a lot better than nothing. The issue with using the AT-14 like the Javelin is the mobility I think - I've often used Javelin teams as scouts or with platoons for their spotting (Breaking the Bank in the CMSF 2 demo offers a really good example of this), so having something without the ability to fire shouldered will limit this in practice quite a bit.

Have been playing around with various attachments for the Russian Motor Rifle platoons. Recently started a PBEM, and quickly realised that the AT-13 ATGM is what I should have chosen, over the AT-14, to bolster my motorised rifle platoon. The AT-14 is a more powerful missile, but the worse choice in this situation: BMP-3 platoons have six free seats. Six man squads, a two man team (Sniper/MG/HQ), and two seats free. That means it's trivial to add up to three two man teams, or a two man team and a four man team, whilst maintaining the same number of transport vehicles. (Probably going to illustrate that at some point - motor rifle platoons and the varying ways one can specialise them). AT-14's have a three man team, which is awkward (you can't fit in two three man teams into the six seats, since they won't split down), the launcher is heavy and relatively slow to set up (~50 seconds) AT-13's have a two man team (therefore you can have three of them), have a shorter minimum range, set up in ~20 seconds and they can also be fired from the shoulder if needed - it's a much more flexible missile, that slots far more easily into the Motor Rifle platoon structure and purpose. AT-13's are also lighter - the crew can move Quick, rather than just Move when fully loaded. Important for getting away after firing and giving away your position. AT-13 is wire guided, AT-14 is laser guided - that means the AT-13 will *not* trigger laser warning systems. The penetration values are similar. The AT-14 has a much longer range, the AT-13 is still effective up to 1,500m, which is usually good enough for a mobile force. The AT-14 carries one additional round (4 vs 3), since the extra team member carries two of them.

Oh, the head-on conflict isn't quite what I meant - asymmetric scenarios are typically hard to get right, but I'm curious to know if an inferior force, used correctly, can compete in quick battles, with competent players on both sides. I'm pretty sure it's possible, but I imagine you'd have to work a lot harder to win with an uncon force. That's obviously also something that has less literature backing it up, so a lot of the problems don't have "book solutions" - trying to figure out how best to leverage the disruptive strengths and lessen the obvious weaknesses.

I'm mostly curious to find out if CMSF is actually worth playing multiplayer, if it's possible to play Syrian or especially Unconventional Forces in Quick Battles and have this be anything like a balanced or competitive fight. Part of that is trying to work out how best to use the tools available, by doctrine or otherwise. The lack of a points buy system in CMSF 1 has meant that we never really got a chance to see proper quick battles in action - CMSF 2 will still be worth playing, even if it isn't a competitive PBEM experience, but I'm interested in the challenge of working this out.

Sitting back and levelling the town is why there are Preserve objectives in this scenario - it's certainly an option in this scenario (albeit a boring one), and I suspect the balance might be a little off for that reason. Sometimes you don't have the option, as much as you might want it. Urban combat is nasty.

There were one or two "euro" mods for CMSF 1 So you can definitely approximate it with modded textures. The buildings will still look like the above - flat roofs and all. I have no idea if you'll be able to import independent buildings into CMSF 2 . There weren't any in CMSF 1.

No? Quite the reverse. Existing CMSF scenarios should work fine, they just won't have been built with Engine 4 in mind. That means they won't have things like water or bridges, and the balance might be skewed in some cases (in the same way that the balance of some CMBN scenarios were altered when the MG rate of fire was changed).

That's really hard to test, I've been trying to force it, but since it's on the back of the turret, it rarely sticks in the same direction.

Only if you're particularly concerned with things like the word "Bradleys" appearing on page 2 of the tutorial scenario. It's only a demo, I wouldn't stress it.

It's been updated at least once, maybe more. I think I saw Steve say it's been updated on two different occasions, but that's not 100%. "The fixes"? I have no idea. Certainly some things were fixed.

Quick Battles against the AI, certainly. Quick Battles against humans can be a different story.

Quick Battles, and especially playing them by PBEM are always possible. I do get your point though - this was one of the main criticisms of the vehicle pack, since you can buy all these neat toys but can't do much with them.

From what's been said so far: It's not clear if every scenario and every campaign has been altered in that way, but we know that at least some of them have. Al Huqf Engagement is one that's been brought up as an example of one which uses all of the new AI tools, and I'd expect many more are similar. There are many things to get excited about in CMSF 2 - some of them are AI related, but others are even more fundamental - not having visible trenches on the map is going to completely change how a lot of scenarios are approached, since (whether you mean to or not), they will still affect your actions. There are also (going by the demo) significant changes to the TO&E, especially for the Syrian side. Nine man squads with two RPK's seem to be seven man squads with a single PKM now, which will drastically alter how everything fits together, from the ground up. It'll be a completely new game, there's an awful lot more going on than just the graphical updates.

Now, them's fighting words I recognised a while ago that I have a strong bias towards manoeuvre. I do think it's pretty trivial to show that position and timing can, in the right situation, completely overturn any numerical advantage, and I generally think it's worth pursuing those avenues first, pretty much all of the time. That's definitely my bias talking though - and it's one that's certainly possible to exploit. On the other hand, there are situations where you're forced into full-frontal violence, and there's not much you can do about it. Recognising those situations are key. I had a recent PBEM on a too-small map that was essentially just a long firefight from start to finish (it couldn't really be anything else). Not the most interesting CMBS game ever, but there was still room for some nuance in how the firefight was won.

In real life, they get longer to do the job - spotting time here is in minutes or seconds, and you don't have as many people doing it. I've certainly used them to spot stationary and moving vehicles, but infantry take much longer to show up (often impractically long). You do get better results with smaller "Observe" missions, which is worth noting. Obviously they're a lot better than nothing, and let you spot things which you can't otherwise see at all (e.g., behind a hill).

If you're playing Blue, then sure The main difference that CMSF 2 will have are things like hidden trench systems - having visible trenches from the scenario start guts an awful lot of the game, so hiding these will force better recon, etc. CMSF has two main things that define it, and both are problems that are not easily solvable without casualties. Urban terrain can be a nightmare to crawl through, and it's terrain that absolutely benefits the Red forces over the Blue - RPG-7 and AK's are at their best at close quarters in built-up areas, and unconventional forces also get civilians they can hide between, making spies and IED's very disruptive tools. The other unsolvable problem are ATGMs - the WW2 titles have issues spotting AT guns, but the ATGM problem is far worse, in many ways. The ability to reach out and frag an Abrams from a couple of km away, and potentially relocate to a secondary position is amazing, and in Syria this is something which exists in the hands of the Syrian regulars and insurgents alike. This is a problem that Israel uniquely faced in Lebanon, and never really solved. Combined with the lack of pre-battle spotting of trenches, and it's going to be a lot harder to pick out likely positions before the game starts. Drones might help, but they're not too hot at finding static infantry.

True. There's also a consideration about diminishing returns - if one squad can suppress the enemy by themselves, there may be no reason to order three squads to do it - doing so is (can be) a waste of resources, and exposes more of your force than you need to (as well as the aforementioned flank security, etc. - if all of your platoon is firing at a given target, then none may be watching the flanks). There's tons of nuance, obviously. (That's why CM is worth playing.) This is part of the reason why you need a plan with survivable fail-states - if you're not likely to win a firefight, you need a way to break contact and get out. That's a lot trickier if you've already committed the entire platoon to the line. The need to bring down devastating firepower quickly is a lot of the reason behind things like the MG teams in Modern US rifle platoons - since you have a large amount of firepower concentrated in a small space, it's easier to build up to fire superiority with minimal commitment - sending an MG team or two to bolster a squad can be a lot easier than getting a second or third squad on line. There's also a difference in how you arrange for a deliberate attack on a known position, and how you manage a move to contact - I think it's reasonable to hit a well-scouted enemy position with two of the three squads in a platoon, with supporting assets, but I'd still usually leave the third behind as flank/rear security, and as a reserve for when things go horribly wrong.

Firstly, Bil's site is *Amazing* http://battledrill.blogspot.com/ 1) The Modern games are a lot more lethal, and a lot less forgiving of error. 2) Urban combat is really hard, even for the professionals. Losing troops is normal, and it's a inch-by-inch, miserable process of "solving" one house or street at a time, sometimes. 3) It generally useful to keep Platoons together, for a couple of reasons, but mostly around Command and Control (C2). The main upshot of keeping C2 is that your units will share spotting contacts (spotting the enemy faster), and they will have some defence against suppression (keeping your suppression down and your firepower up). The way it tends to work, as per Bil's site, is that a platoon has an objective, and may have elements attached to support it. In Breaking the Bank, I split up the Javelin team into two (Javelins are great anti-armour, but they also spot really well), one with each platoon, and also assigned an engineer, sniper team and Challenger MBT to each of them. You generally want to engage the enemy with as little of your force as possible, so that you maintain maximum options - one of those options is to halt the advance, and bring in a second platoon to assist. That's a little trickier in complex terrain, but it still applies. IanL maintains a great FAQ thread: Possibly the most valuable in there are: and

The two links above aren't a bad start, particularly The Russian Way of War. There's definitely a paucity of information out there, especially at the lowest tactical levels. The quote above: Is probably correct, but I still think there's a lot of room for nuance that isn't really clear. The basic idea - the russian/soviet-style mechanised infantry attack (bombardment, leading with tanks, then BMPs, which optionaly dismount and clear) is brutal and straightforward - clearly the BMP is designed to be fought from as much as possible, and to provide protection to itself through superior firepower. This implies the kind of foreplanning that a successful Command Push requires - your recon forces are there to identify and engage the most pressing threats, your indirect suppresses or destroys, and you push through with overwhelming firepower in a fairly simple manner. I suspect that fighting against ATGMs is something of an unsolved problem for all concerned - Israel certainly didn't solve it in Lebanon, and CMSF is a pretty similar scenario in many regards. From Red's perspective, Javelins are a huge problem for the Syrian and Russian forces to deal with in a CM attack, and I'm not convinced there's anything like a good solution, just some least-worst ones. The thing that's most illuminating to me about The Russian Way of War is the old "Soviets specialise, Western armies generalise" adage - it wasn't really clear to me *how* that's supposed to work, until I clocked that you have all that extra space in BMPs doing nothing. With this, this means that a given platoon can be dedicated to a defensive, ATGM role, and another can be set up for assault, etc. That suddenly made the weaker Soviet platoons make a lot more sense to me - the default platoon is weaker because it's half finished.

Assuming it is a bug - that does mean that C2 awareness becomes really important with Syrian units. In particular, it will mean an actively moving HQ unit, sharing spotting contacts between platoon squads, but potentially running back into the squad BMP to share those contacts with the Company as a whole.

Good to know, thank you. Any idea why the Syrian platoon squads would show radio C2 to the platoon leader whilst he's in a BMP, but not outside of one? Outside they're only showing voice or visual contact, or none when moved out of LOS and audio range. Inside the BMP the squad has radio contact with the Platoon leader (and the platoon leader has radio contact with the Company HQ, but that's not surprising - the BMP has a radio and the company HQ has a Radio Operator.) e.g.: HQ in contact visual and audio contact with squad HQ out of audio range and LOS with squad: (This is what I'd expect to see if the platoons had no man-carried radios. I don't think any are depicted, but that doesn't necessarily mean much). HQ out of LOS and audio range with squad, but inside a platoon BMP: Which only makes sense if the squad has a radio, surely?

Oh wow, nice spot. I wonder if Civilian density in CMSF2 will be the same then.